r removing any just cause of discontent on the part of any
class, and for securing to every American citizen complete liberty and
exact equality in the exercise of all civil, political, and public
rights. To this end we imperatively demand a congress and a chief
executive whose courage and fidelity to these duties are placed beyond
dispute or recall."[18]

The National Democratic platform of that year, however, spoke for the
democracy of the whole country and declared its faith in the
permanence of the Federal Union, and devotion to the Constitution of
the United States with its amendments universally accepted as a final
settlement of the controversies that engendered the Civil War; but
took a bold stand for reform as necessary to rebuild and establish in
the hearts of the whole people of the Union eleven years ago happily
rescued from the danger of a secession of States but now to be severed
from a corrupt centralism which after inflicting upon ten States the
rapacity of carpet bag tyrannies, had "honey-combed the offices of the
Federal government itself with the contagion of misrule and locked
fast the prosperity of an industrious people in the paralysis of hard
times."[19]

In 1880 The Republican party made no particular mention of the
grievances of the Negroes but recited its record in suppressing the
rebellion, reconstructing the Union with freedom instead of slavery as
its corner stone, the transformation of four million human beings from
the likeness of things to the rank of citizens and removing Congress
from the infamous work of hunting fugitive slaves and charging it to
see that slavery shall not exist. It declared, moreover, that the
South must be divided by the peaceful agencies of the ballot that all
opinions might there find free expression and to this end the honest
voter must be protected against terrorism, violence or fraud.[20]

In 1884 there was no specific reference to the Negro unless it be
found in the statement that the Republican party had gained its
strength by "quick and faithful response to the demands of the people
for the freedom and equality of all men; for a united nation, assuring
the rights of all citizens."[21] The platform of the Democratic party
carried a declaration equally as emphatic in that it said, "the
preservation of personal rights; the equality of all citizens before
the law; the reserved rights of the States and the supremacy of the
Federal government within the limits of